And Look How Things Could Have Been
by Fuuga Kumi
Summary: 2010 secret santa fic, what if Sora would have gotten the keyblade earlier in life? What, if anything, would have changed?


**And Look How Things Could Have Been**

Author's note: this fic is my secret santa present for the kh_drabble community. It was written to the request of "if one of the kids got their keyblade earlier than in canon" and posted here for your enjoyment. 3

* * *

Riku glares upward at the sky, as if it is personally responsible for his current bad mood and not, in fact, his still absent best friend. He has no idea how long he and Kairi have been standing on the beach waiting for Sora. Long enough for Kairi to grow bored with conversations about the weather and homework and start building a sand-castle with supplies they keep for emergencies in the tree house. Neither of them wore a watch and while Riku is trying to divine the time via location of the sun, so far all he had for his trouble was the beginning itch of a headache.

"He's late." He finally announces, as if their entire existence hinged on this big reveal.

"And you sound surprised." Kairi sweeps the little plastic shovel against the side of her still growing sand-mound, smoothing it out with careful precision. She peeks at him from the corner of her eye and flashes a quick smile coupled with a little _just saying_ kind of shrug.

He can't really argue with her and decides it's not befitting his station as an almost teenager to stoop to childish squabbling. "It's just; we can't really do anything til he gets here." This isn't entirely true, Sora very rarely cares what they do so long as they're all together and is usually quite happy to jump into the first thing suggested. Still, and Riku is loathe to admit this, he feels off balanced when the numbers don't equal three.

Kairi hums a tuneless melody as she packs more sand into the bucket. "We could play hide-and-peek while we wait?"

He scoffs at this and looks at her like she's gone green and scaly. "No way, I'm too old for those kiddie games."

"You are _not_." she drops a handful of sand onto his head. It's soft and dry and Riku only has to give his head a firm shake to dislodge the worst of it.

"I am so," he insists, "I'm _almost_ a teenager."

It's Kairi's turn to make rude noises at him. "Almost only counts in horseshoes," she quips back so fast Riku has trouble following for a moment. Then she adds, "Oh we could play horseshoes. I think that old set is still up in the tree house."

"Thanks, but I'll pass. You get _mean_ and those things are kind of heavy." He rubs absently at his shoulder, still remembering the sting from last time they attempted a game.

"You're such a baby," Kairi chides. She shoves the bucket at him, now empty and light it bounces harmlessly against his chest. "Go get some water; it's time for the moat."

Riku stands and gives a dramatic bow, "of course, princess." He laughs at her expression, squinty eyes and scrunched up nose and protruding tongue, but still does as he was told.

Kairi has dug the moat too much, both deep and wide, for such a puny little castle and it takes several trips down to the roiling waves to fill it. "I'm going to catch a crab," she tells him upon his second trip back, "and name him Sebastian and this will be his castle. I think he'll keep all his sheet music inside it." Riku wisely chooses not to comment on the strange places Kairi's mind seems to drift some days.

There is nothing left to do but wait; the two of them and the little crabless castle, for the last member of their party to arrive. Kairi has taken to decorating her creation with remnants of shells and leaves, Riku finally bites the bullet and leans over to join her when they both hear a familiar voice shouting to them.

Sora comes tripping across the dock, going down on his knee once before scuttling back to his feet and talking a mile a minute. "Youguyswon'tbelievethisit'sthecoolestth

ing_ever_."

Only Kairi interrupts his steady babble with a startled gasp. "Sora, what happened to your face?" She prods the dark bruise that has blossomed beneath his left eye carefully and shoots a suspicious glance behind her at Riku.

"Hey. I didn't _touch_ him." Riku holds his hands up defensively in a sad attempt to keep Kairi at bay.

Sora grins sheepishly, "oh no. That was me. I was practicing my sweet moves with my sword last night and ran into the door."

Kairi looks shocked at this revelation and Riku is helpless to do more than laugh. "But that's not the cool part!" Sora insists, taking several tripping steps backwards, "_watch_."

He starts flailing the hand holding his sword in a wild manner, manages to bonk himself in the forehead once. "I'm alright," he tells Kairi who has taken a hesitant step towards him. "Hang on, it can take a while." His tongue is poking out the corner of his mouth and his eyes are screwed up in the deepest expression of concentration. Sora brings the sword down in a solid arc and sighs as the wood shifts into some sort of metal contraption. "_See_."

They do see, although neither is exactly sure what it is they're seeing. "Is that a _key_?" Riku finally asks, poking at the smooth silver much the same way children are prone to poke at unfamiliar animals.

"Yup." Chirps Sora. "It was really weird, because I thought I saw a shadow in my room _moving_," at Riku's expression of disbelief he's quick to add, "totally dumb, I know. But there was this tense moment where I thought it was going to get me and then," Sora motions to the key as if that explains everything.

Kairi makes appreciative little cooing noises and runs a hand delicatelyl against the parts that make up the teeth of the key. "Does it have a name?" she asks quietly, blinking up at Sora with a far away expression.

"I call it Bob." Sora replies.

Riku fixes him with a mildly appalled look. "That's dumb, what does it even _do_?" He slants his body a little to the side, already bringing up his sword to parry Sora's incoming blow, which is delivered without fail.

Sora grins, launching into another strike as he says "it kicks your butt."

Twenty minutes later finds the three of them gathered around the splintered remains of Riku's toy sword. "Huh." He says, lost for any other response to this particular situation. "Now what?"

Sora looks first at Kairi and then over to Riku. His strange blade has disappeared, gone to rest in lands unknown until Sora bashes himself in the head again to bring it back. "Wanna play hide-and-peek?"

Riku shrugs, an easy unaffected motion. "Sure."

xXxXxXxX

There is something sitting on Sora's chest. He grumbles in his sleep and tries to roll over to push the something off, but it'll have none of that. "Sora," says the thing, "Sora please wake _up_."

The something turns out to be Kairi and she's not sitting on his chest so much as resting both her hands there and shaking him gently. He blinks sleep out of his eyes, stares from his open window to the girl kneeling next to him on his bed.

He wants to ask what she's doing here so late, wants to ask if she's okay, if she realizes she's in a boy's room, wants to know _why_ she felt the need to sneak into a boy's room past midnight. "Kairi, you're a girl." Is all he manages.

She smiles at him, offers a half hearted giggle. "Yea, I am. But that's not what's important right now." Her face has gone all serious and Sora finds himself snapping quickly into the waking world. "Sora, do you remember last year when you first got the keyblade?"

"The what?"

"Bob, Sora. When you first got Bob."

A ding of recognition lights up his eyes. "More or less, yea."

"You remember the shadow you thought was in your room, the moving one?"

Sora nods mutely, trying to swallow the acidic fear bubbling in the back of his throat at what he knows Kairi is about to say. "I think they're back."

His first time fighting the walking shadows happens while he's barefoot and in his pajama pants. There's only three of them, they don't put up much of a fight but stare at him in an almost quizzical manner. He thinks they might be cute in different circumstances, if they weren't so alien and frightening.

"Kairi, you weren't out here with those things, were you?"

Her entire body is trembling a little, but she doesn't cry like Sora expects her to. "No," she says, "I was in my room but…but I _felt_ them, Sora." Kairi places both her hands over her heart, either shielding it or reminding herself she's okay. "They felt wrong. I did try to attack them, you know. Stole a knife from the kitchen, but it didn't do anything. Not like your keyblade did."

He wonders where she got the name from, decides it doesn't really matter (and yea, okay, it's a little cooler than Bob). Sora pats her once on the shoulder, like he would do with Riku after a good fight. "Sleep with the phone next to you. I'll do the same and if you feel any more of them, call me. Okay?"

She doesn't say anything in reply, only gives one quick jerk of her head in affirmation before stumbling back towards her own house. Sora does the same and tries not to worry about what he's just gotten himself into.

There will be more shadows, Sora has no doubt about that, but the intervening years are so quiet he can almost completely forget about that night before they appear again.

xXxXxX

"You _do_ know you could just ask the janitor to open it for you, it's considerably less breaking-and-entering than this." Riku stares down the hallway, making sure no teachers happen their way while Sora does his increasingly familiar jig to try and summon the keyblade. "Haven't you figured that thing out yet? It's been four years."

"Shut up, this is a lot more complicated than it looks." He finally manages to pull the keyblade into the physical world, grinning a little maniac grin as he does so and tries his best to ignore Riku's pessimistic question of "is this even going to work?"

Sora stands a few feet away from the door in question and aims the keyblade like a shotgun. He feels a sharp tug behind his naval and thrusts the blade forward, turning it sideways in the middle of the air. The door unlocks with a soft _click_ and he feels fully entitled to the happy dance he performs in the empty hallway. Also, the "I told you so" song he serenades Riku with.

Riku pushes him into the room, hissing a reminder that they're here to grab his things so stop goofing around. His mind wasn't occupying the same hallway as his body. Instead, he was thinking about secret places and unopenable doors.

Kairi has a little to-do list pinned to the mast of their raft. She has checked it over three times, and is going over it once more for good measure. "Well boys, I believe this is it." She flashes her friends a brilliant smile, "last day on the islands, are you nervous?"

Riku waves her question off, keeping his focus on the horizon as if he could picture their destination by sheer will. Sora, however, is staring doubtfully at the logs they had so painstakingly tied together to form their escape vehicle.

"I wonder," he says, "how far can a raft take us?"

"There is another option," says Riku, turning the full heat of his gaze on Sora. "Why go out, when we can go _in_." At his friends confused expressions, he continues, "the door inside the secret place. We have a _key_, Sora. We can finally open it, who knows what we'll find in there it might—"

"No!" Kairi cuts him off, eyes wide and a little wild and her breathing is heavy. "Riku, no. Just because you can doesn't mean you _should_." She stands tall, shoulders square but both boys can see the idea of the door bothers her, a lot. They both promise to drop the subject, that they'd already agreed the raft is their best bets.

The sun sets, the three friends bid each other good night. "Sunrise," Kairi says, "don't forget."

Only, Riku can't sleep. There's a storm rolling in and he can't stop thinking about that door, hidden deep within the secret place. He rolls out of bed before he can really consider his actions and is back on the island in practically a blink.

The door looms in front of him. It has remained unchanged for all these years. He touches it, tracing the keyhole emblazoned in light upon its center. There is a voice from behind him, the same old man who was in here when he came to gather the mushrooms for Kairi.

_You have the power, you can open the door._ Says the man.

Riku does not speak to the man, words are not necessary. He holds his hand up as a blade materializes. It's similar to Sora's, he knows that, but only on a rudimentary level. Because, unlike Sora, Riku isn't afraid to use his for it's true purpose.

He smiles as the mysterious door swings open.

(and now, we begin)


End file.
